NSSN Co-Director appointed UNSW Dean of Engineering
NSW Smart Sensing Network Co-Director Professor Julien Epps has been appointed to the role of Dean of Engineering at UNSW Sydney.
NSSN Co-Director Professor Julien Epps.
The faculty is ranked first in Australia by QS World University Rankings and ARWU Shanghai Subject Rankings.
The Dean of Engineering has executive responsibility for the research, education and societal impact programs of UNSW Engineering, and oversight of the faculty’s eight schools.
It is a role he will take up in addition to his continuing role as Co-Director of the NSW Smart Sensing Network.
In congratulating Prof. Epps on his appointment, UNSW Vice-Chancellor and President Prof. Attila Brungs said that Julien is an internationally recognised expert in speech signal processing who was appointed Dean after a global search.
“He has attracted a career total of around $20M of research funding from a variety of programs and has delivered keynotes and invited tutorials to major international conferences,” Prof. Brungs said.
As Co-Director of the NSSN, jointly with Prof. Ben Eggleton, Prof. Epps has set the strategy for the Network, co-led a large team of Theme Leaders and Business Development Managers and overseen NSSN’s $80M pipeline of prospective and funded projects.
Prof. Epps moves into the role from Head of the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications at UNSW Sydney, the largest and highest ranked School of its kind in Australia.
In accepting the appointment, Prof. Epps said: “It is a tremendous privilege to lead such an outstanding team of researchers, educators and professionals working at the very frontier of engineering.”
”Given that many of the world’s current challenges, for example the Grand Challenges that NSSN has prioritised, are highly complex and require breakthrough solutions, engineering has a key role to play in the coming years.
”I am looking forward to growing the Faculty’s impact even further – in research, education, entrepreneurship and society.
”I am sure to draw upon my experiences with the NSSN team bringing together industry, government and nine universities to co-create multi-university, multi-disciplinary smart sensing solutions to address pressing societal challenges.”
Securing his doctorate in 2001, Prof. Epps quickly rose to prominence, taking on significant industry roles including Senior Research Engineer at Motorola Labs and Senior Researcher and Project Leader at National ICT Australia.
By 2007, his expertise led him back to UNSW, where he took up a position as a Senior Lecturer.
Professor Brungs described Professor Epps as a “fervent champion of research translation”, who had expanded his impact as a Contributed Principal Researcher within Data61, CSIRO and lent his specialised knowledge as a Scientific Advisor to the Boston-based startup, Sonde Health.
“Since his appointment as Head of School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications in 2019 and drawing upon his industry learnings and passion for research translation, Julien has led the school’s outstanding track record of high-quality research, industry engagement, spinout companies and educational excellence,” Prof. Brungs said.
Professor Epps starts in the role on December 1.
This is an edited version of an article which originally appeared on UNSW Newsroom.